My Two Front Teeth

May 5, 1970 a Wednesday night at 8 pm

The summer of 1970, was a turning point in my life. I was never the same afterwards. I learned much about myself and life that summer, more than I could comprehend at the time.  Seeing more than I should have, learning things I never wanted to know. 

My little brother Bart had gotten a new bike for Christmas that year.  Having his own form of transportation was important to him.  He’d waited all winter to ride his bike as soon as the weather was warm enough. This bike was his pride and joy.  

 That night after dinner, Bart and I were hanging out under the street lamp at our corner one night.  There were about five of us or so, maybe more, now that I think about it; Cindy, Bart, Bobby, Joey, A, and me. 

Bart wanted to use the bathroom and instead of going to our house and maybe getting trapped inside with our parents, he went to Bobby’s house for a quick get away.  He handed me his bike and said, “Lin, hold my bike for me, but don’t ride it.”

“Aw’right.” I said, taking the bike with every intention of riding it the moment Bobby’s front door slammed behind them.  I thought I’d ride to the middle of the block and back before he even knew it.  

I swung my right leg over the seat and grabbed the handle bars with the streamers and I take off up the block.  As I get farther away from the street light  it became darker and I back peddled to slow down but my feet just spin backwards.  Just as my front wheel found the ring around the manhole in the middle of 4th Avenue I found the hand brakes, clenched tight, and stopped the bike on a dime.  Girls bikes didn’t have hand brakes.

All I saw was the blacktop coming up to meet me.  I ended up lying in the middle of the street tangled in my brothers new bike, spitting out what I later realized were my two front teeth; bloody down the front of my face, arms, and legs.  Though I had to think about it for a minute I eventually screamed “Help,” and my friends came running.  

Joey Twohy was my boyfriend at the time which really only meant I wore his watch. Joey came running when he heard me scream for help, picked me up and helped me up the front steps to my house. The top half of the Dutch door was open so Joey called in through the screen door to my mom, “Mrs George”.   

Bart came running up the street to find his bike in the street luckily there was no damage done.  He picked it up and rode off into the dark just as my mom opened the door to let me in. Joey returned to our friends out under the street lamp.

As I stepped in the living room my father looked up from the TV and burst from his black Naugahyde recliner screaming “What the hell happened to you?” And then yelling to my mom, “Dottie, come take care of this. Oh, for Christ sake, I told you not to let her go outside, she’d get hurt!”  He slammed his way through the kitchen, on his way down the basement stairs to hit his boxing bag. Rat a tat tat, Rat a tat tat…we heard the familiar rhythm my father had after being a boxer for years as a young man.

My dad didn’t handle stress well.  I’ve learned that there was a reason for his short temper, his feelings of being out of control, the underlying rage. Life takes its toll.  He wasn’t angry at me, he was frustrated because he felt it was his duty to protect me from harm. He had the passions of a Latin man, which he was. 

My mother helped me up the stairs to the bathroom and called for Carl, my older brother,  to come and help her clean me up. My mom attending to my face, Carl filling the sink with warm water and rummaging through the medicine cabinet to find the bandages and ointments.  

My father was still screaming and slamming things downstairs. My mom reached behind her and kicked the bathroom door closed to keep out the angst.  They cleaned me up and put me to bed. 

The next morning my mom called in sick to work and took me to the dentist office in Asbury Park, an old white man wearing a white coat.  He was not gentle, he was not friendly and I spent the next few hours in his chair getting needles jammed into my gums and the drill sanding down my two front teeth into points.  Having molds made and ‘temporary’s’ fitted.

I had to go back to see him several times over the next several weeks for more work and each time I was miserable.  I hated everything about the experience other than the fact that I had temporary teeth in the front of my mouth for a couple weeks and I could suck them in with my tongue and virtually hide them behind my pointy little blackening front teeth. I did this because it entertained my friends and because I was thirteen and found it funny. 

Because I’d missed so much school at the very end of my eighth grade year I was able to make up tests and catch up my work by sitting in with the special-ed kids, the only place they could find for me to do my work. They were supposed to leave me alone while I used a corner to take my tests so I could graduate with my classmates.  That’s what they were supposed to do. 

I might have been the most mature kid in the room but that didn’t stop me from dazzling them with my two front fangs.  I made the best of it and had fun playing with the other kids.  I wasn’t embarrassed nor ashamed, it was what it was. 

Nine days after the accident I turned fourteen and then a few weeks later I graduated from grammar school. Because I was the shortest girl in the eighth grade I sat in the front row center aisle on the stage in my white robe with my new white shoes.  These were the same white shoes I wore when I’d talked my mother into allowing me to join the Rainbow Girls down at the Masons Temple in town. What was she thinking?  At least I got more wear out of my white shoes. The day of graduation I wore my shoulder length brown hair in a flip and fortunately smiled broadly to show my new teeth off. I  was no longer able to dazzle my friends with my pointy black front teeth. 

My father had not spoken to me for the first three days. If I walked in the room, he’d walk out disgusted.  He wouldn’t look at me.  I stayed in my room and read.  I know now that it was because his stomach churned with the sight of his beloved daughter damaged. He tried to protect me by limiting my activities.  As a little girl I wasn’t allowed to walk on the curb.  “You might get hurt! Here walk with me and hold my hand.”  No riding bikes, no swings, no diving, no sports, nothing that might hurt me.  No wonder I rebelled so badly as a teenager. 

Knocking out my two front teeth taught me a bit more about my parents’ strengths and weaknesses and their ability to handle stress. I was able to find the funny in the situation, made the best of it and smiled.